Grand County-Green Mountain Trail

[Denise B.]

My husband and I hiked in Grand County earlier this week, including in an area burned by the 2020 East Troublesome Fire north of Grand Lake, and thought we would share a few observations of birds, plants, and our impressions of the area 21 months post-fire.  We hiked the Green Mountain Trail to Big Meadows, a beautiful 2 mile trail we have hiked from time to time over the last three decades.  The trail recently re-opened after it was cleared and log bridges were replaced, etc.  All of the trees in this area burned. Some trunks are still standing; many lay on the ground; many burned to ash. 

The wetter areas and some hillsides were incredibly lush with grasses and wildflowers including fireweed, thistle [primarily Cirsium centaureae I think), bedstraw, arnica, lupine, cow parsnip, harebell, yarrow, monkshood, asters/daisies and others.  And somewhat surprising to me, there were more bird species than I expected to see or hear.  Lincoln’s Sparrows were singing in many of the grassy drainage areas. We saw or heard Pine Siskins sparsely throughout; we saw one picking at one of the thistles.  A few Mountain Bluebirds flew through the burned tree trunks.  I sat in the grasses at the edge of Big Meadows for about 15 minutes to take it all in and recorded several species of birds – Western Wood-Pewee, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, American Robin, Mountain Chickadee, Pine Siskin, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Lincoln’s Sparrow – even though the trees ringing the large meadow were all burned.  I reported 11 bird species total for our hike. https://ebird.org/checklist/S115398835

This forest area will be very different, but aspens are already coming up in the previous aspen areas.  It will be most interesting to see how this area transforms from burned soil, wood, and ash over the next three decades. Thanks to Jack Bushong’s Grand County article a few weeks ago, publicized by Mark Obmascik’s Cobirds post. We added a few more ebird lists for Grand County.

Denise Bretting, Loveland